We only have to digest recent statistics to understand that social networks and blogs continue to dominate time online, now accounting for nearly a quarter of total time spent on the Internet. Indeed social media has grown rapidly - today nearly 4 in 5 active Internet users visit social networks and blogs and close to 40% of social media users access social media content from their mobile phone.
But was is social media really? - it’s not a particularly tangible activity with an immediate ROI. Of course it has an ROI but it is measured very differently to say a leaflet drop campaign where xn leaflets in area y will produce a z result. Instead social media is about building an on-line community around your brand, it is about enabling potentials, customers and staff to fall in love with your brand and giving them things to do on-line that are focused around your products, your company culture.
What is strikingly obvious in this brave new social world is how most of our target demographic has changed behaviour, in terms of how they spend their time. It really is a reality that the typical 2011 family will sit at home watching the television with a warm laptop sitting on their knees with Facebook open and Google search in another tab. This is prime-time, these are key moments that are ripe for you as a business owner to engage with your customers, to design compelling environments to engage people.
Of course it’s not just the home environment that presents rich opportunities. Even during work hours and in the competitive business to business area mobile phones are in constant use with us all searching and absorbing information at a rate faster than ever before, it’s gaining momentum rapidly not reducing.
The smart winners in all of this will be those businesses who embrace the new models of communication and build social communities.